It was the first time that Will had seen the four-man CIA team together. They sat with him in a room within the small Savic Hotel in Prague’s Old Town. Smoke from Laith’s cigarette lingered over them and mingled with the steam from the mugs of coffee each man held. It was nearly 1:00 A.M., but all the Americans looked edgy and energetic.
“Why are we not on Lana?” Laith’s voice sounded hostile.
“Will and I are taking a risk leaving her alone right now, but we have vital reasons for doing so.” Roger spoke slowly, glancing at Will before returning his gaze to his men. “Which hotel is she in?”
“She’s in the Clarion.” Ben took a swig of his coffee and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s about one kilometer away from here on the other side of the Old Town.”
“And the DGSE team?” Roger again.
“All four of them have arrived.” Laith blew smoke while speaking. “Like us, they’ve taken one room to use as their base. They’re staying in the Hotel Josef.”
“What’s their drill?”
Laith smiled a little. “Last time we looked, all four of them were watching Lana’s hotel. But that was before you called us here, so right now I’ve no idea.”
“Do they have weapons?”
Julian shook his head. “Very unlikely. No time to get any, plus why would they feel the need to arm themselves?”
Roger nodded. “All right. How do they look?”
“Highly professional.” Laith extinguished his cigarette. “Their movements are slick, they barely talk to each other, meaning they don’t have to, and they’re using creative surveillance maneuvers.”
“Do they look like they could handle themselves in a confrontation?”
Ben frowned. “They look and move like Special Forces. They’ll be able to take care of themselves if the Iranians do spot and assault them.”
Roger wordlessly ceded the floor to Will.
Will breathed in and spoke. “In one hour’s time, Lana will leave her hotel to take a walk through the Old Town. This will come as a surprise to her Iranian and French watchers, but I doubt they’ll view it as suspicious, as Prague is at its most beautiful at night, when its streets and alleys are empty. I think all four of the DGSE men will be on her, because this is their first night of observing her. Unlike the Iranian team, they’ve not yet had the chance to define a pattern of her behavior that could allow them to decide whether they can scale back coverage of her at particular points of the day. But the Iranians will most likely have only one or two people on her, as they’re far more familiar with Lana’s movements and they know that she’s never before left her hotel after midnight. Nevertheless, when they see her taking her walk, they’ll alert at least two of their colleagues to join them, and within thirty minutes of that alert they’ll number three or four men.” Will looked at each of the men in turn as he spoke. “That thirty-minute gap is crucial, because during that time we’re going to kill the DGSE team.”
The CIA men were silent for a while, and Will wondered who would speak first.
Roger looked at his men. “Do any of you have a problem with this task?”
Julian looked directly at Will. “As long as we’re authorized to do this, I’ve got no problem. But how are we going to do it without being seen by the one or two Iranian specialists?”
Will nodded at Roger, who then spoke. “The Old Town is a labyrinth. A team of two Iranians won’t be able to do much more than follow Lana wherever she goes and stay pretty close to her for fear of losing her position. But the DGSE team of four will be able to box her position from a greater distance, given their higher numbers. That means we can attack their perimeter without being seen by the Iranians.”
“What about the bodies?” Laith took out another cigarette and held it unlit.
“We don’t have the time or the resources to get rid of them,” Will replied. “But it is essential that the Iranians know nothing about the assault. When it’s done, Lana will take a route back to her hotel that will draw her Iranian watchers and any of their colleagues away from the scene. She’ll then check out of her hotel, head to the airport, and travel on to Sarajevo.”
“Does she know anything about our plans?”
“She suspects that Megiddo has put someone, or even several people, around her, but she doesn’t know about our team or the DGSE team, and she certainly doesn’t know anything about what we’re going to do. She has of course asked me why she needed to come to Prague and why she needs to make this specific walk, and I’ve told her she’ll have her answers when I next see her.” He shook his head. “I will, however, give her no such answers.”
He rose from his seat. “Gentlemen, I suggest you spend the next fifteen minutes mentally preparing yourselves, because after that we need to move into position.” He walked to the far corner of the room and replenished his mug with more coffee. As he did so, Roger moved next to him.
The CIA man spoke very quietly. “Are we authorized to do this?”
Will looked at Laith, Ben, and Julian and saw that they were in discussion and out of earshot. He looked at Roger. “You have my authority.”
Roger’s eyes narrowed. “What about Patrick’s authority?”
“He’s back in Washington right now, so that he can calm some waters. He doesn’t need to be bothered with this.”
Roger stared at Will for a long moment. “We’re going to be attacking a Western ally. If something goes wrong and we’re caught, the repercussions on us will be terrible.”
Will nodded. “I know.”
Will was on Týnská, and he could see no one else on the street. The place was partially lit with streetlamps, and he sat on a bench beneath one of them so that he was easily visible. He rubbed his gloved hands together and reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a bottle of Becherovka. He then unscrewed the bottle’s cap and poured some of the alcoholic liquid over his jeans and coat and exposed face. Taking a swig from the bottle, he felt its contents burn down his throat. He placed the now half-full bottle by his side, pressed a number on his secreted cell phone, and said, “I’m here.”
Within seconds Will heard Roger’s voice in his earpiece. “Good. We’re all in position. In five minutes our lady should be at the place.”
Will stretched his legs out before him and crossed his feet. The temperature was well below freezing, although the streets were free of ice and snow. He breathed slowly and watched his breath turn to steam in the shadowy air. He began to gently hum a tune, caressing the base of the bottle of bitters.
“One minute until she’s there. Radio silence from now on, so earpieces stowed away.” Roger’s voice was quiet and calm.
Will kept humming as he casually removed his Bluetooth device and dropped it into his pocket. He visualized Lana’s route from her hotel, taking her to where she would now be and then to where she had to be in less than sixty seconds. That place had been carefully chosen by Roger to be the intersection of V Kolkovně and Dlouhá. Roger had reasoned that if she was there, then he could accurately pinpoint to the nearest twenty meters where each member of the DGSE team should be positioned and by extension where his own team should be waiting. Will knew that right now Ben was five hundred meters away from him on Vězeňská to the north, that Laith was on Haštalská to the northeast, that Roger was somewhere on Kostečná to the west, and that Julian was following Lana. Will also knew that Roger had chosen to position Lana in the intersection because it had five exits; the Iranians would have to move in very close to her in order not to lose her to one of these routes. Will again lifted the bottle to his lips and tilted it back, but this time he prevented any of the liquid from entering his mouth. He hummed his tune a little louder so that its sound echoed off the nearby building walls, and as he did so, he moved his head slightly left and right to observe the street.
He saw the man. At first he was merely an almost shapeless variation of the darkness at the end of the street, but as Will moved his vision in a figure-eight motion around the shape, his eyes adjusted and he knew that it was him. The man was walking slowly along the street and toward Will’s location. He was alone, his hands thrust into coat pockets and his head bowed low. Will tightened his grip around the bottle and took another pretend swig of its contents. He closed his eyes for a while and stretched the muscles in his legs and back.
When he opened his eyes again, the man was nearer. Will held the bottle in his lap. He hummed some more, laughed a little, and took a genuine swig of the Czech liquor. The man kept walking at the same pace. Then, as he came to within twenty meters of Will, he started crossing the street toward the opposite pavement. Will breathed in deeply and laughed again.
“You want a drink?” Will said the words loudly and with a slur.
The man said nothing and went on walking until he was directly across from Will.
“Hey, you want a drink?”
The man walked on.
Will stood up, grabbed the neck of his bottle, and lurched across the road toward the man. “Just trying to be polite. No need to fucking ignore me.”
The man kept walking. He was of medium build, but Will could tell from his posture that he would be very strong. Will staggered after him until he was within two meters of the man’s back.
“I said there’s no need to ignore me. Just want to share my goodwill.”
The man turned, took one step forward, and punched the flat of his hand against Will’s chest. The force of the impact was so powerful and precise that it lifted Will’s two-hundred-pound body into the air and backward. As he crashed to the pavement, his bottle smashed around him, and he lay for a moment, trying to breathe. The man turned to continue his journey with the same steady pace. Will brushed glass off his coat, pushed himself up onto his feet, and cursed loudly.
The man continued onward, and Will smiled. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. He sprinted forward, thrust his left hand into the small of the man’s back to grab a bunch of his coat and the belt underneath it, smashed his right elbow upward into the man’s jawbone, and thrust up and backward so that both of them were in the air. As they fell back, Will twisted the man’s body so that it was beneath him and falling headfirst toward the sidewalk. He held his elbow in position, and as they landed on the ground, the man’s neck snapped instantly from the impact. He was dead.
Will rummaged through the man’s pockets and took his wallet, passport, cell phone, and all other materials that might show his identity. He knew that police would still be able to trace the dead body, but the things he’d removed would, he hoped, delay identification by a few hours. The light around him was bad, so he switched on a small flashlight to examine the man’s passport. He frowned, swung the light at the dead man’s face, then back at the details in the passport.
“Oh, dear God, no.”